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New Scientist Live

Japan roars back into space business

By Jeff Hecht

Japan is back in the space business after the seventh launch of its H-IIA rocket successfully boosted a meteorological and air-traffic-control satellite into orbit on Saturday.

The H-IIA is the mainstay of Japan’s space programme. It had succeeded five times before November 2003, when one of two solid boosters failed to separate from the main rocket. That forced destruction of the rocket and its payload of a pair of spy satellites built to monitor North Korean activities.

The Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) put further launches on hold until it identified and fixed the problem – the booster engine’s nozzle had burned through, apparently triggering failure of the system supposed to separate it from the rocket. That failure was particularly embarrassing because it came only weeks after China put its first astronaut – or taikonaut – in orbit.

The H-IIA success did not come easily. Weather delayed the launch two days, and the sky was cloudy on the afternoon of 26 February at the Tanegashima Space Center – on one of Japan’s small southern islands.

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Closing windows

Originally scheduled for 0809 GMT, the launch was delayed for more than an hour by communication problems between the rocket and ground control. The rocket eventually took off at 1025 GMT, just eight minutes before the launch window closed. Relieved space program officials said the rocket flew smoothly and released the 2.9-tonne MTSAT-1R satellite into geosynchronous transfer orbit 40 minutes later.

The launch was the first to use a configuration of the H-IIA with one pair of large solid boosters and a second pair of smaller boosters supplementing the liquid-hydrogen-fuelled first stage. With payload and fuel, this version of the rocket stands 53 metres tall and weighs 316 tonnes.

Its payload is comparable to the Ariane 4. JAXA stresses that the H-IIA weighs less, making it more fuel efficient. But that has not attracted international customers in a launch market dominated by Europe, Russia, and the US.

With a queue of spacecraft awaiting launch, the success was good news for Japanese space officials and rocket-builders. The next launch is expected to be a remote-sensing satellite in the Summer, with a copy of MTSAT to follow at the end of 2005. Replacements for the lost spy satellites may follow.